Complaint Filed Against PM Sharon and Author of Outposts Report

A concerned citizen from Haifa has asked the police to investigate possible criminal activity involved in the preparation of the controversial report on new neighborhoods in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

First Publish: 3/11/2005, 1:37 PM / Last Update: 3/11/2005, 10:43 AM

The report, prepared by former State Prosecution attorney Talia Sasson, has caused a backlash against all the bodies involved in building "unauthorized outposts" in Judea and Samaria. The report purports to show a series of illegalities perpetrated by many different government offices and bodies that were involved in funding, constructing and providing services to budding Jewish neighborhoods in Judea and Samaria.

Aviad Visuly, head of the Haifa-based Land of Israel Task Force, filed charges in the Kfar Saba police station yesterday against several people, including Prime Minister Sharon, who requested the reports.

Visuly's main claim is that though the report investigated many government offices and bodies, it overlooked two of the most critical ones: The Ministry of Infrastructures and the Prime Minister's Office. Both of these were headed by Ariel Sharon during the period covered by the report, and figured very strongly in everything connected with the outposts.

Visuly also states that Atty. Sasson did not investigate her own department, the State Prosecution's Department of Special Functions, which also had much to do with the small neighborhoods.

"The main 'suspect' in this whole story is actually Prime Minister Sharon," Visuly told Arutz-7, "who encouraged people to come to the outposts. No mention was made in the report of the unwritten agreements in which Yesha leaders would come to Sharon with lists of new places and he would approve them. He appointed Sasson to write this report so that it would 'cleanse' him."

Visuly said he plans to file suit against Sasson for slander: "Even the State Comptroller, when he criticizes someone, gives him a hearing first. The Yesha leaders asked to meet with her while she was preparing the report, but she refused. She met with Peace Now, however."

Any complaint filed against the Prime Minister automatically goes to the Attorney-General for his consideration, Visuly explained. "Attorney-General Mazuz will now have a problem, because if he accepts Sasson's recommendation to investigate the people that she mentioned, he will also have to investigate Sharon himself."

Visuly has another series of charges that he filed with the police as well. For one thing, Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz and his predecessor Binyamin Ben-Eliezer are barely mentioned in the report, even though they had much to do with the approval of outposts.

Visuly further says that the choice of Sasson to write the report was apparently illegal, in that it violated the Tenders Law that states that there must be a "cooling-off" period between the time she concluded her work in the State Prosecution and her appointment by a government office.

The police must also investigate, Visuly charges, whether Sasson mispresented herself, as she submitted the report on Prime Minister's Burea stationery even though she was not a state employee.

The report itself contains incitement against many residents of Yesha, Visuly maintains, as it includes a call to "harass and abuse them" by detaching their water and electricity supplies.

Atty. Sasson's report includes recommendations that the Attorney-General consider legal measures against Housing Ministry officials who "knowingly acted against the law, regarding the establishment of unauthorized outposts and" an alleged "caravan affair" of 2003 involving "publishing the tender for caravan [mobile home without wheels] production, the winning bid, the conveyance of caravans into unauthorized outposts, and any other matter concerning the caravan affair." She further recommends that legal measures be considered against the Assistant to the Defense Minister for Settlement Affairs. In addition, Sasson writes that six of the outposts can and should be evacuated and demolished immediately.